Emily Schroeder Willis

This course will focus on developing beginning and continuing skills on the wheel. Students will be introduced to fundamental methods for using the wheel as a tool to create vessels with consideration of their meaning and consequence and stretch the boundaries of utility. In addition to the design and structure of functional objects, this course will familiarize students with the working properties of ceramic material, firing methods, and glazes.

We will look at artists working both in traditional and non-traditional methods. Artists will vary, but some we will look at include: Edmund de Waal, Alleghany Meadows, Gerrit Grimm, Mike Helke, Steve Lee, and more. Readings will include articles covering topics about the convergence of fine art and craft, how objects affect our daily life and rituals, the place of craft within contemporary society. Specific authors may be : Chris Staley, Glenn Adamson, Jenni Sorkin, Okakura Kakuzo and Edmund de Waal

Projects vary, but typically there are 5-6 assignments in the course with each assignment consisting of 3-20 pieces of finished work with additional research in glaze and firing processes. Students will also have readings and responsibilities with firing work.

This multilevel class is for students with or without experience in wheel throwing. Beginning students are introduced to ideas, materials and techniques for throwing vessels. They acquire the necessary skills to construct and analyze a wide range of vessel forms. Intermediate and advanced students continue their individual development of throwing, glazing and firing kilns. Course discussions focus on issues around the vessel to acquire critical understanding of containers and their functions, as well as using the wheel as a means for constructing sculptural forms.

This course surveys the history and production of clay and ceramics, from one of the earliest ceramic objects known, dating back some 20,000 years, to the present use of clay in contemporary art, design and craft. The course will take us through every continent and be looking at the use of ceramic in different cultures at different times though history. Attention will be given to the role clay and ceramic plays in our human development both as ritualistic, artistic and functional handmade and mass-produced objects. From ceramic in an ancient caves to NASA and the use of ceramic in space and everything in between.

This course surveys the history and production of clay and ceramics, from one of the earliest ceramic objects known, dating back some 20,000 years, to the present use of clay in contemporary art, design and craft. The course will take us through every continent and be looking at the use of ceramic in different cultures at different times though history. Attention will be given to the role clay and ceramic plays in our human development both as ritualistic, artistic and functional handmade and mass-produced objects. From ceramic in an ancient caves to NASA and the use of ceramic in space and everything in between.

Readings may include extracts from, ?Ten Thousand Years of Pottery? by Emannuel Cooper, ?Art, history, and gender: women and clay in West Africa? by Marla C. Berns , ?20th Century Ceramics (World of Art)? by Edmund de Waal, ?Arita / Table of Contents: Studies in Japanese Porcelain? by Anniina Koivu and ?Vitamin C: Clay and Ceramic in Contemporary Art? by Clare Lilley and varius essays by Nigel Wood, Tanja Harrod, Glenn Adamson and Namita Gupta Wiggers Paired with exhibitions like the 2019 `The Journey of Things? by Magdalene Odundo The Hepworth Wakefield, The 2004 ?A Secret History of Clay: From Gauguin to Gormley? at TATE Liverpool and the permanent ceramic collection at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Assignments include: working together to shape a research project proposal for a presentation on a specific part of the ceramic history, object-based written based on a piece of ceramics

This course examines a variety of cultures (African, North, Central and South American, European, Asian) through the lens of their ceramic histories. Students will develop vessels based on a response to this cultural information. Each projects will be rooted in a discussion and a tour with a different curator at AIC. Topics addressed will be: gender and sexuality, domestic and ritual vessels, architecture and environment, politics and culture and class and industry.

Clay is an amazing material for an interdisciplinary artist to have in their repertoire. It can be as hard as stone one moment and you can also watch it disintegrate before your eyes the next. Throughout the centuries artists and craftspeople have capitalized on its transformative nature, sometimes even disguising it in plain sight. In this course we will see how artists from many backgrounds have used transformative materiality within their work.

ARTISTS/READINGS
Readings will vary but we will look at excerpts from articles like: Jo Dahn ¿New Directions in Ceramics¿, Jenni Sorkin ¿Pottery in Drag: Beatrice Wood and Camp¿, Paul Matheiu ¿The Radical Autonomy of Ceramics¿. A sample of artists whom we will be studying are: Bertozzi & Cassoni, Alexandra Engelfriet, Teri Frame, Shiyuan Xu, Claire Twomey, Marilyn Levine, Renata Cassiano Alvarez, Nina Hole, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Andy Goldsworthy, Theaster Gates, Edmund de Waal, Magdalene Odundo and Pheobe Cummings

ASSIGNMENTS/PROJECTS
Course work will vary but typically includes weekly reading responses, biweekly mentoring meetings, engage in critique of both peer artwork as well as self-reflection on student¿s own work and a few small individual projects.

This course offers advanced students a forum for critiques and discussion of contemporary ceramic directions. Emphasis is placed on individual development through complex integration of technology and information. Field trips and artists' studio tours provide a format for extensive dialogue. Students with a studio in the department are highly encouraged to enroll in this class.